Books: The Lubetkin Legacy by Marina Lewycka

While the title of this novel might suggest to some a new Bond movie, those with a passing knowledge of postwar socialist architecture will recognise it as a homage to the great Berthold Lubetkin, designer of some of London’s most iconic blocks of flats. Progressive social housing, with its gardens, balconies and lightwells, was once thought to be the answer to all the ills of the metropolis. Nowadays its most desirable examples are in private hands, a fact that the woman at the centre of Marina Lewycka’s novel is strongly opposed to. Or she would be, if she weren’t dead.

Lily Lukashenko, child of radical East Enders and one-time lover of Lubetkin, was given a new flat in one of the architect’s fine Islington developments…

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